A printed circuit board (PCB) is a thin board made from fiber glass, plastic or similar material that is “printed” with electrical wires, or traces. The traces on the PCB provide efficient electrical connections between leads of electronic components that are subsequently mounted to one or more surfaces of the PCB.
To support complex circuits with a PCB having a reduced two-dimensional footprint, several PCB layers can be vertically stacked and laminated together to form a multilayer PCB, in which circuit traces are present on each of the multiple layers of the multilayer PCB. In such multilayer PCBs, traces on the respective layers of the multilayer PCB are electrically connected using plated via connections.
A via is a hole, formed in at least one layer of a multilayered PCB, that interconnects one or more of the multiple layers of the multilayered PCB. A via typically passes through metal pads of traces on two or more layers of the multilayered circuit board. The hole is then plated with a metal conductor, e.g., copper, to form an electrical connection between the respective trace pads. When a plated hole extends beyond the PCB layer which has a trace that needs to be interconnected, a via stub is formed.
The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.